Articles by

Bruce Bower

Ancient southern Africans took genetic evolution in a new direction

Important, previously unrecognized genetic changes common to all ancient and modern Homo sapiens spread in Africa more...

A clay figurine unveils a storytelling shift from 12,000 years ago

A roughly 12,000-year-old clay figurine unearthed in northern Israel has unveiled a surprisingly ancient turning point in...

Peru’s Serpent Mountain sheds its mysterious past

New evidence may resolve a longstanding archaeological puzzle in Peru. A vast line of thousands of holes...

Fossil hand bones point to tool use outside the Homo lineage

Newly discovered African fossils lend a hand to suspicions that an ancient hominid outside our own...

What Jane Goodall taught me about bones, loss and not wasting anything

Jane Goodall died on October 1 at the age of 91. When I heard the news, my...

The oldest known mummies have been found — in Southeast Asia

Southeast Asians created the oldest known human mummies roughly 7,000 years before Egyptian mummies debuted, researchers say....

Venice’s iconic winged lion statue originated in ancient China

Venice’s famous bronze statue of a winged lion, which stands atop a pedestal in St. Mark’s Square,...

Ancient hominids made long road trips to collect stone for tools

Starting at least 2.6 million years ago, East African toolmakers became tech-savvy road warriors. Those hominids, perhaps...